ASSESSMENT OF AGE AND DEMENTIA FRIENDLINESS OF OTTAWA COMMUNITIES AS PERCEIVED BY PERSONS WITH DEMENTIA AND CARE PARTNERS

Abstract In Canada there are over 500,000 persons living with dementia with prevalence estimates reaching as high as 912,000 by the year 2030. Given that age is the strongest known predictor of dementia and the fact that our population is ageing, there is an urgent need to create communities that promote older adults (including those living with dementia) reaching their maximum potential and feeling welcomed and included while ageing in place. The aim of our study was to determine the utility of a tool developed using a citizen science approach with persons living with dementia and their care partners to determine how they perceive the age- and dementia-friendliness of their neighbourhoods (where they live, work, conduct business and socialise). Ten participants were recruited for a pilot study which took place over a six-week period. The project designed and tested an audit tool, accessed via a smart phone/tablet, that allowed data to be collected quickly and in real time. This audit tool also allowed participants to upload quantitative and qualitative responses (including photos of locations being audited). Participants were trained to become citizen scientists in a series of workshops where they also collaborated with researchers to develop the audit tool. During the data collection period, citizen scientists audited locations/spaces that they visited during their day and submitted their responses using the app. Our findings present a case for increased inclusion of older adults, including those living with dementia, in research and intervention programs that target the promotion of age- and dementia-friendly communities.

with the environment but little data is currently collected about how older people perceive or use public spaces.Daily experiences, often over long periods of time, mean older residents have acquired intimate first-hand knowledge of their neighborhoods, and thus, may be more qualified than experts to assess the age friendly qualities of neighborhood public spaces.A citizen science approach addresses this need for a deeper understanding of how public spaces are used and viewed by older residents.Through multiple citizen science projects over the past five years, we have co-designed and trialed a 'senior' citizen science approach to auditing and evaluating the age friendliness of public spaces.Our research shows that citizen science allows for richer, deeper qualitative, quantitative and longitudinal data that incorporates lived experience perspectives; produces better project designs and outcomes; develops a cohort of older people interested and engaged in research, and engages and trains people to apply a critical 'age friendly' perspective to their neighborhoods and communities enabling them to be future change agents.

ASSESSMENT OF AGE AND DEMENTIA FRIENDLINESS OF OTTAWA COMMUNITIES AS PERCEIVED BY PERSONS WITH DEMENTIA AND CARE PARTNERS
Kimberly Campbell 1 , Annie Robitaille 1 , Linda Garcia 1 , Michael Mulvey 1 , Helen Barrie 2 , Cat van Es 3 , Ana Blanco 3 , and Alexandra Chiareli 1 , 1. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 2. University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, 3. The Dementia Society of Ottawa and Renfrew County, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada In Canada there are over 500,000 persons living with dementia with prevalence estimates reaching as high as 912,000 by the year 2030.Given that age is the strongest known predictor of dementia and the fact that our population is ageing, there is an urgent need to create communities that promote older adults (including those living with dementia) reaching their maximum potential and feeling welcomed and included while ageing in place.The aim of our study was to determine the utility of a tool developed using a citizen science approach with persons living with dementia and their care partners to determine how they perceive the age-and dementia-friendliness of their neighbourhoods (where they live, work, conduct business and socialise).Ten participants were recruited for a pilot study which took place over a six-week period.The project designed and tested an audit tool, accessed via a smart phone/tablet, that allowed data to be collected quickly and in real time.This audit tool also allowed participants to upload quantitative and qualitative responses (including photos of locations being audited).Participants were trained to become citizen scientists in a series of workshops where they also collaborated with researchers to develop the audit tool.During the data collection period, citizen scientists audited locations/spaces that they visited during their day and submitted their responses using the app.Our findings present a case for increased inclusion of older adults, including those living with dementia, in research and intervention programs that target the promotion of age-and dementia-friendly communities.

USING TRANSDISCIPLINARY CO-PRODUCTION TO GAIN INSIGHTS INTO SPATIAL JUSTICE AND AGE-FRIENDLY CITIES Patty Doran, The University of Manchester, Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Globally, a popular policy approach to address the two interrelated challenges of population ageing and urbanisation has been to adopt the World Health Organization's Age-Friendly City framework, a model that can help to identify and address barriers to the well-being and participation of older people.This paper reports early findings from the 'Ageing in Place in Cities' project.The research was conducted from a critical gerontology perspective and embedded a spatial justice perspective by centring the concepts of equity, diversity and co-production in our underpinning theoretical framework.Discussing findings from seven case study cities (all who were early adopters of the Age-Friendly Cities framework), this paper discusses how a transdisciplinary co-production approach has been used to gain greater understanding of age-friendly initiatives in each city.Using mixed methods, we first developed descriptive profiles for each city using both census and other local demographic data to explore how the populations have changed over time, and narratives and policy documents detailing the initiatives used to support ageing in place.Second, we conducted semistructured interviews with a variety of actors in each city to examine how the cities delivered age-friendly change.We integrated the data using a comparative case study approach to draw out insights across the cities.Our findings reveal the role of key leaders and stakeholders in age-friendly cities and will be of interest to policy makers and academics interested in population ageing and urban change.Further, our transdisciplinary co-production methods present a novel approach to conducting age-friendly research.

EVALUATION OF THE DEMENTIA FRIENDLINESS OF AIR TRAVEL-A CANADIAN PILOT STUDY
Linda Garcia, Alexandra Chiareli, Annie Robitaille, Michael Mulvey, and Valentina Primossi, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada An earlier initiative involving various stakeholders in the air travel industry, disability advocates, researchers, and individuals living with dementia and their travel partners identified five key areas to reduce the challenges faced by travellers living with cognitive limitations: there was a need for information and awareness on the topic, a discussion on disclosure and identification, a readjustment of processes and spaces, a need for formal training and standardized processes across jurisdictions.Next, focussing on current and planned initiatives for reducing these obstacles, the research team determined what might be available to consumers living with dementia and their families at Canadian airports.This symposium presentation will focus on the design and benefits of a citizen science approach for addressing the identified obstacles and the accessibility of the stated airport initiatives through the lens of passengers with dementia and their travel partners.Moreover, a prototype tool, adapted from the citizen science tool used in other presentations in this symposium, that includes data from the findings of both the stakeholder group and the airport analyses symposium will be presented and discussed in terms of its appropriateness and usefulness to evaluate the dementia-friendliness of air travel.

WHO WORKS LONGER IN LATER LIFE? KEY VARIATIONS IN WORKING LIFE EXPECTANCY IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Chair: Brian Beach Discussant: Hugo Westerlund In the context of population aging, policymakers are eager to encourage and enable longer working lives, assuming this will lead to increased tax revenue and reduced demand on social security and health care systems.Simultaneously, individuals who work longer will gain additional income and may experience the psychosocial benefits that come from workplace engagement.However, many factors drive early labor market exit, and blanket policy strategies to extend working lives often ignore the nuances that shape the length of real working lives.Such policies have emerged partly from increased life expectancies, although these measures fail to capture subgroup differences in the capacity to continue working.They also do not account for often discontinuous labor market trajectories, particularly around retirement.As such, scholars have turned to more refined methodologies and concepts like working life expectancy (WLE) to better inform policies that actively aim to increase retirement ages.This symposium highlights an ongoing program of work by the IDEAR network, which examines WLE using longitudinal studies of aging in Europe.The symposium features results from Sweden and England, estimating WLE using multi-state models.Unlike other approaches to estimate life expectancy employing the Sullivan method, this approach allows for reversible transitions between work and non-work, reflecting the dynamic and complex nature of modern labor market transitions and exits.The symposium further presents how WLE varies according to key determinants, including socioeconomic status, healthy lifestyles, and unpaid caregiving, highlighting the policy implications that emerge from recognizing inequalities and variations in WLE across vulnerable subgroups.

ESTIMATION OF WORKING LIFE EXPECTANCY: APPLICATION OF A MULTISTATE MARKOV MODEL Holendro Singh Chungkham, Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, Sweden
Longer life expectancy in Western countries has led to concerns about sustainable workforces amid the rising costs of securing aging populations.Retirement age is no more a good indicator of the end of the working life, because many older workers move in-and-out of workforce.A more useful measure is working life expectancy (WLE), which is the expected number of remaining years from a given age that a person will work.This measure considers transitions across different employment states.The method adopted for estimation of WLE is along the same line to estimate health expectancy (HE) based on cross-sectional data